Christmas has not been cancelled!

Hands up who thinks this the best Christmas they’ve ever had?

Hmm…

Ok, let’s try another one.

Hands up who struggled to get out of bed this morning, wanted to burst into tears, can’t bear one drop more rain, has a screaming overdraft and redundancy on the shoulder and no immediate prospect of anything, is missing family so it hurts and wishes Christmas would just go away?

I wish I could talk to my parents. How did they get through Christmas 1939? Or indeed any of the next five…

I woke up today and realised the only presents I’ve managed to organise are for people I’m not allowed to see.

A few days ago my daughter Serena posted this on her Facebook page:

My mother tells a story of the year she wept in the stairs on Christmas Eve when she suddenly realised she’d had so much to do she’d completely forgotten to buy any presents at all.

The way she tells it, we all gathered around her and told her don’t worry mummy, we don’t mind about presents. This makes us seem like adorable little cherubs when in truth, as any of my contacts on here who knew us at the time (probably ranging in ages from 3-ish to 10-ish) will tell you, we were pretty feral. But I believe the story, because the not minding about presents bit was absolutely true.

Christmas in the house I grew up in was utterly magical, and it really had very little to do with presents. We had carols, nativities, Christmas services, games, family, friends.

So if you are that parent this year, crying on the stairs because you were planning all your Christmas shopping in the next few days (having been rushed off your feet before then); if you’ve just had all the presents sent to an address that you’re now not allowed to visit, and your heart is breaking for the children you feel you’ve let down: summon up all the things that made Christmas magical for you as a child, and I bet you the presents will not be the first things that come to mind.

Decorate the tree. Bake gingerbread. Light candles. Put cinnamon on EVERYTHING (come on now, name one situation where the addition of cinnamon makes anything less good). Visit a church service or stream one online (even if that’s not normally your thing). Sing carols. Or enact a pagan sun-rebirth ritual if you prefer 

Play parlour games (charades is much funnier, by the way, if you make the actor perform a mute precis of the book/film/whatever). Wear Christmas jumpers. Mourn for your Christmas if you want; the parents, siblings, nieces and nephews you’ll miss seeing. Maybe even the 20 minutes peace on Earth you were desperately hoping for while Grandfather entertains the ankle biters. But if the presents are bothering you, please don’t let them. They’re really not the ingredients required for a special Christmas.

X

Curiously, that was after we were all locked in our houses and realised we couldn’t see one another for Christmas.